The Monstrosity
by Totemaster
Summary: The TARDIS malfunctions and the Doctor and Donna Noble end up in New York in a parallel universe. Soon things go horribly wrong as a gargantuan creature attacks the city. Doctor Who/Cloverfield crossover.
1. Chapter 1: A very bumpy ride

Author's notes:

Hello, everyone. This is my first fanfic. Ever since I saw Cloverfield, I've been wondering what would've happened if the Doctor had been there. I hope you like it. I have already posted this on a certain fanfiction archive entitled "A Teaspoon and and Open Mind".

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who or Cloverfield. Doctor Who is the property of Russell T. Davies (Well, actually Steven Moffat if you're still reading this in 2010)and Julie Gardner, and of the Beebiddy-beeb-beeb-beeb (The BBC, obviously). Cloverfield is the property of J. J. Abrams and Matt Reeves, Paramount and Bad Robot.

Well, what more can I say? Enjoy.

...

**Chapter 1: A very bumpy ride**

A strange sound, like a key scraping across wood, echoed across a vast, alien mountain range. The Tardis was dematerializing.

Inside, the Doctor fiddled with various switches and levers on the console.

"Where do you want to go next?" the Doctor asked.

"I was thinking of someplace a little bit warmer," replied Donna.

"I know just the place…" the Doctor began, "…Florana!"

"What's that like?"

"Oh, you're going to love it. Carpeted by perfumed flowers, seas of warm milk and sand as soft as swan's down."

"Sounds great," she replied excitedly.

"Alright then, Donna Noble! Off we go!" the Doctor said, grinning widely. He flipped some switches on the TARDIS console, seemingly at random.

"Maybe we should invite my Gramps to… Whoa!"

Suddenly the TARDIS console went up in sparks, and soon everything was upside down, spinning in circles… it was impossible to stay balanced. Then, suddenly, it all stopped, oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling and everything went dark.

**End of Chapter 1**


	2. Chapter 2: The other side

Author's notes:

These first two chapters went really well in my opinion. I'm doing my best to get the personalities of the Tenth Doctor and Donna exactly right and I apollogize if the descriptions are a bit dry, boring or otherwise flawed.

...

**Chapter 2: The other side**

"Oh, no…" the Doctor muttered. He had seen this happen before. Back when Rose and Mickey were travelling with him.

"Doctor! What the hell just happened?" Donna was, understandably, quite shaken.

"Donna, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," the Doctor said, trying his best to comfort his companion.

"Why, what is it?"

"Well, it's a little complicated but…"

"Yeah?"

"There's a chance that we might be in a place called the Void. The space between realities."

"That's not good, is it?" Donna now had an unpleasant sinking feeling in her stomach.

"Not at all, I'm afraid." Seeing the look of despair on Donna's face, he added, "Although… we could be in an alternate reality, a parallel world. A timeline running alongside ours, but taking a slightly different course."

"That's not so bad, then."

"Either way, there's only one way to find out."

"Open the door?"

The Doctor nodded. They went to the TARDIS' front door.

"Are you ready for this, Donna Noble?"

"Yes."

"Alright, then…" He paused for a moment, before opening the door.

On the other side were trees, lots of trees. The Doctor and Donna stepped out. There was the sound of a busy city nearby.

"That's a relief," said Donna, relieved that they were standing on real, solid ground and not fumbling about blindly in some gaping infinity, "Where and when are we, Doctor?"

"New York. Definitely New York," The Doctor said. He sniffed the air, "Central Park, to be precise. In the early twenty-first century. Wait a tick..." He picked up a twig and, much to Donna's embarrassment, licked it. "Ah, yes, the 22nd of May, 2008, at 5 PM exactly."

"What do we do now?"

"First of all, we've got to fix the TARDIS. I managed it the last time I was trapped in a parallel world. Gave away about ten years of my life for that. Looks like I'll be giving away another ten this time, too."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Ah, that's all right. Anyway, I'd better get started." The Doctor went into the TARDIS, followed by Donna. He dug about in the wires under the console and pulled out what looked like a small, blue gem. He blew into the object and it started glowing. He then tinkered about with the console using the sonic screwdriver.

"There we go, that's that problem solved. Unfortunately, we're going to have to wait a while."

"How long?"

"About twelve hours or so."

"Ok." Donna said quietly. She couldn't help but think that something wasn't quite right. She couldn't quite place it. It was just one of those feelings. Gramps would've jokingly told her that it was probably just her mum's cooking, but still this feeling that something wasn't right just wouldn't go away. But she decided to try and ignore it.

However, little did Donna or the Doctor know that that night, something bad would indeed happen. Something very bad…

**End of Chapter 2**


	3. Chapter 3: Slusho

Author's notes:

This is a slightly longer chapter. Here I tried to add in a bit of Cloverfield's backstory along with some of my own theories, as well as some references to the Doctor Who series, old and new.  
Later in the story, I might also play a bit with showing the monster's perspective on things.  
And for all you Ten/Rose shippers, I'm awfully sorry, as I don't really like the idea of the Doctor being sexually attracted to humans. Not even after watching Journey's End.

...

**Chapter 3: Slusho**

"So what do we do now? You know, to pass the time while your ship warms up?" Donna asked the Doctor.

"I dunno. What do you want to do?" The Doctor replied.

"Well, I'm out of ideas."

"Wanna go exploring? There's a whole parallel Earth out there, just waiting for us to explore it. Every decision we make creates an alternate Universe, so it might be interesting to see what makes this world different from ours." As much as the Doctor disliked being trapped in an unfamiliar world, he was very curious. In fact, he was tingling with curiosity.

"Alright, then." Donna said, standing up. The two of them left the TARDIS.

The world outside appeared to be virtually identical to the home version of Earth in almost every aspect. In fact, almost suspiciously similar.

"This isn't so different," the Doctor said, "not so different at all."

"Doctor?" Donna was carrying an old newspaper

"Yes, Donna?"

"What's this about the mysterious collapse of an oil rig?"

The Doctor perked up instantly. "Let me see." He flicked through the article at superhuman speed. "Oh, yes. Mysterious collapse of the Chuai station, strange amateur footage of flying wreckage, the oil company Tagruato keeping quiet about it… Something very strange is going on. Stranger even, perhaps, than the planet Barcelona…"

"What could this mean, Doctor?"

"This means we should see what we can find out about this oil company. There's an Internet café just around the corner. Are you coming?"

At the Internet café, after booking a session with some help from the psychic paper, the Doctor browsed away on the Web while Donna went to get a drink. In a few minutes, Donna returned with two icy drinks called Slusho.

"You've got to love the Internet," the Doctor said, "there's all sorts of interesting stuff on here. Look at this." He opened a new tab. "Here it says that Tagruato is involved in researching the deep ocean. Look at their subsidaries. Yoshida Medical research, a genetic research firm specializing in deep sea bioprospecting. They're developing biotechnology drugs that can be used as anti-cancer, antioxidant, antibiotic, and anti-malaria, as well as treatments for Alzheimer's disease, cystic fibrosis and even herpes. That's quite a lot, don't you think?"

"Yeah."

"And look at this. Slusho, an icy slush drink that uses a secret, highly addictive ingredient called Seabed's nectar. Oh, you've bought some! Donna, you are brilliant! We can take one of these drinks back to the TARDIS and find out exactly what's in it! It won't take a lot of the TARDIS' power to analyze it, so it won't interfere with its recovery. We've got to hurry, because it says here that the Seabed's nectar doesn't keep particularly well at room temperature."

Later, in the TARDIS, the Doctor took some of his drink and put it into an odd-looking contraption under the console while Donna drank the other one.

"Mm, this stuff really is good, isn't it?" she said, drinking the last of her Slusho.

"Well, we should know what it is in a minute."

"Doctor, you said you'd been in a parallel world before. Was that with…?"

"Rose. Yes." The Doctor had quite serious look on his face for a moment, but was back to normal in an instant. "That was a while back, now. Stopped an army of Earth-based Cybermen."

"Cybermen?"

"You don't want to know." He remembered that time very well and the Cybermen - or rather Cybusmen - like so many other things in his past, he'd prefer to forget about altogether. He also remembered Rose Tyler very well. She had been a nice companion. Towards the end of their travels, she'd clearly fallen for him, but since he wasn't human, he could never truly love her back. Not like that.

The machine suddenly beeped. The sample had been analyzed. "Here we go! Right," he said to the machine, "let's see what you are…" He flicked through the readings.

"So what is it?" Donna asked. "What does it say?" She really wanted to know, mostly out of curiosity, but also because she didn't like the idea of eating something that might be alien, harmful or both. She remembered the slogan of Adipose industries: The fat just walks away. Slusho's slogan: You can't drink just six!, was eerily reminiscent of that.

"A chemical known typically as the waste products of certain types of deep sea bacteria. You'll be pleased to hear that it's not harmful. Well, in fact quite the opposite…"

"The opposite? What do you mean?"

"According to this, it stimulates cellular reproduction, meaning it can repair living tissue quite easily and it can even enhance physical size in some cases."

"It's not alien, is it?"

"No, no. It's from here on Earth. Deep sea, to be precise." The Doctor had that serious look on his face, the way he usually did when he knew something wasn't the way it was supposed to be. "There's something that worries me, though. In deep sea, where there's little or no sunlight, bacteria form the basis of entire ecosystems. A whole world in its own right, built on bacteria. As one of my old enemies once said; a microscopic organism, reigning supreme. Now, if something happens to the bottom of the food chain, it can and will have serious consequences for organisms higher up by chain reaction. When their food supply is depleted, they can react in two ways. One: The organisms die out. Or two…" He gave Donna an ominous look.

"Look for more in other places…" she finished.

"Yes. And if the chemical makes things grow bigger, anything that eats it regularly is going to be pretty big…"

"You don't think they could come on land, do you? I mean if it's, like, ruddy great fish as big as dinosaurs or something, they wouldn't be able to breathe. Right?"

The Doctor said nothing.

"Oh, come on!" Donna wasn't exactly thrilled about the idea of giant fish flopping after people.

"Well, you've got to admit, it is pretty unlikely." The Doctor said, partly in an attempt to calm Donna down a bit.

"Maybe we should find something else to do. I mean, it's going to be a while until the TARDIS is ready to go." Donna said, trying to change the subject.

"Good idea." The Doctor said, sensing Donna's discomfort, "How about an evening stroll in Central Park?"

"Sounds good to me."

The two of them left the TARDIS and walked away, chatting.

Meanwhile, out in the ocean, something huge was swimming at great speed, heading straight for New York, with only one thing on its mind...

**End of chapter 3**


	4. Chapter 4: The attack

Author's notes:

Now the action really begins. As I probably said before, I'm going to write bits of the story from the monster's point of view, marked with -- : --s between paragraphs.

...

**Chapter 4: The attack**

It was a very nice evening. At about 10, after a long stroll in the city, the Doctor and Donna decided to have dinner at a restaurant. The Doctor looked concerned the whole time.

"Doctor, are you alright?"

"Well, actually, I don't feel good at all. Do you remember that time in Pompeii, when I said that I could feel what was meant to happen and what wasn't?"

"Yeah?"

"I can feel something, Donna. Something is coming. Something really bad is going to happen in this city tonight. I can feel it. Really strongly."

Donna said nothing. Even she, though only a human, could feel something deep inside. And now that the Doctor had said that he could also feel it… she dreaded to think what that something might be.

"Donna, I think we should get back to the TARDIS. It'll be safe there. And we could both do with a good night's sleep."

"Yeah. You're right."

They paid and left. They were quite a way away from Central Park, so it would take a while to get there.

--:--

Scared. Scared of the things. Things with the lights and the big rock with pillars and the bitter black water. Find her. Must try. Shallow water. Strange noises. Strange tastes. Things. Lights. Scared. Hungry…

--:--

The Doctor and Donna continued walking. They had made a mistake in going too far from the TARDIS. At the top of a nearby block of flats a few streets away, it was possible to hear loud music. A party, perhaps?  
Suddenly, the silence was broken by a bone-chilling roaring sound and suddenly all the lights went out for a second, but then came back on.

"What was that? Doctor, what the hell was that?" Donna said, now really scared. That sound was like nothing she'd ever heard before.

"I don't know," the Doctor replied, "but now I think that we should've picked a restaurant a bit closer to Central Park."

They kept going, a little faster than before.

"It sounded like an animal of some kind." Donna said, moving quite fast as she spoke.

Suddenly there was the sound of an explosion in the distance.

"What was that?"

"The army trying to- Donna, get down!"

The Doctor pushed Donna over, the two of them falling onto the ground as a burning fireball hit the building above them and exploded, causing flaming debris to rain down all around them.

"You saved my life… again."

"We have to get to shelter now. Come on!" The Doctor said, pulling her up and running for the nearest door, as more fireballs rained down.  
Suddenly, the fireballs stopped, and people came flocking onto the street.

"Donna, no!" The Doctor said, as Donna ran out onto the street.

However, she soon came running back after something enormous hit the street and rolled several metres. Once it was still, it became clear that it was the head of the Statue of Liberty.

**End of chapter 4**


	5. Chapter 5: Wrath of the Deep

Author's notes:

Here's a little action chapter. I decided very early on that I would use one of the monster's attributes that never made it into Cloverfield itself, but were used in Cloverfield/Kishin, namely the modified esophagus.

Well, enjoy!

**Chapter 5: Wrath of the Deep**

Donna was speechless. She had expected something mad but not THIS mad.

"Oh, this is not good," the Doctor muttered to himself, "not good at all…"

Suddenly, there was another crashing sound. Donna looked round, just in time to see an impossibly massive creature, looking something like a cross between a frog and an ape, lumbering across the street in the distance. Something appeared to be dangling from the lower part of its massive chest, but she couldn't make out what it was.

"Doctor! I saw it! It's alive, it's huge!"

"Donna, head for cover!" the Doctor shouted, and Donna saw what he was looking at. The Woolworth Building had collapsed, sending a cloud of debris hurtling towards them. They immediately ran for the nearest shelter — the ground floor of a nearby building — and hid behind a staircase, as the windows shattered and a cloud of dust burst in. In a minute, the cloud had settled.

"What did you see, Donna?" the Doctor asked. He was eager for some answers in this chaotic night.

"It was the biggest animal I've ever seen. It was bloody massive. Impossibly big."

Thunderous footsteps followed. The Doctor ran to the window and peered outside.

"Doctor!" Donna said, her voice filled with terror, but still whispering in case the monster could hear them. As frightened as she was, she ran to the Doctor. If there was any safe place, it was with him.

"Now," the Doctor muttered, as frighteningly tall legs became visible through the smoke and the dust, "what are you?"

The creature placed a massive forelimb on the ground close to their hiding place. Terrified people ran about on the street, screaming. Even the Doctor looked a bit spooked, as the beast's torso was so massive that it completely blocked out the light from the fires in the building across the road. It wasn't very easy to see the creature's face or body clearly because of the dust.  
Two arm-like appendages seemed to extend from the creature's torso. Their function soon became clear, as they shot forward, grabbing a handful of people and sucking them up. These things weren't arms. They were feeding tubes.

Suddenly, one of these tubes shot out, narrowly missing the Doctor and Donna and grabbing a few more people. There were small tentacles extending from inside the tubes, feeling and fondling the helpless victims all over before pulling them back up.  
Then the creature pulled the feeding tube back and walked on, revealing large, dinosaur-like hind legs and a tail with a paddle. For a second, Donna thought she could see another pair of arms just behind the feeding tubes, but she wasn't sure. Either way, this had to be the most terrifying thing she had ever seen, but soon the creature was gone.

"Chain reaction…" the Doctor muttered to himself, stepping back out, "Donna, we really have to get out of here."

"Doctor," Donna said, following him, "what the hell is that thing? Please tell me you know."

"I don't know. I'm sorry, Donna, but I just don't know. I need to get a good look at the whole animal to be sure. I'm sorry."

"So, what do we do now? I mean, we can't exactly stay here, can we?"

A group of people were gathered just ahead of them. A young man with curly, brown hair had caught the monster on film and was showing the others the footage on his video camera.

"We must reach the TARDIS. We have to leave as fast as possible."

They began walking in the direction of Central Park. A man in the other group said something about crossing the Brooklyn Bridge and soon his group was off.

--:--

Scared. Things throw fire at me. Hungry. Eat the things. Itchy. So itchy. Little crawling things tickle and itch. Things throw fire again. Scared. Swim away from the things. Where are you, Mummy?

--:--

**End of chapter 5**


	6. Chapter 6: Any port in a storm

**Chapter 6: Any port in a storm**

The Doctor and Donna ran through the streets, the sound of gunfire right behind telling them that the creature had made an impact. Loud crashing nearby meant that it was moving in the same direction as they were. It seemed as though no place was safe. No place except the TARDIS.  
Suddenly, the Doctor stopped, just outside an electronics shop, and ran inside. It soon became clear why. A news report was being broadcast on television.

"Oh, my God," Donna whispered to herself.

The report was shocking. It showed the Brooklyn Bridge being hit by the beast's enormous tail, and then there was some footage from inside the city, showing the grotesque creature very clearly. It vaguely resembled a great ape, but with completely hairless skin, a long tail and a head like a cross between a fish and a bulldog. The feeding tubes could be seen groping about idly, along with a second pair of arms, as the massive animal rubbed its back up against a building, glass and rubble raining down at its feet.

"Oh, you are beautiful…" the Doctor muttered, his voice filled with awe and even a hint of fear.

Suddenly, the television screen showed soldiers running around by the beast's legs, as little lumps of something rained down all around them. "…there appears to be something coming off of it… Oh, my God!" the news reporter said. The lumps turned out to be spider-like creatures the size of dogs, that soon started scuttling about and mauling nearby people.

"Oh, great…" Donna said sarcastically.

"I think it's time to go," the Doctor said, "don't you?"

"Yeah," Donna said, and the pair of them ran for it, nearly bumping into a young man, who was being followed by two young ladies and that curly-haired man with the camera.

The roar of the monster echoed through the night; a terrifying, primeval wail that seemed to embody all the troubles of the world.

The Doctor and Donna kept on running, not daring to look back, for fear of what might be following them.

Suddenly, a rocket hit a nearby building, causing a massive explosion that sent the Doctor and his companion tumbling to the ground.

There was the all too familiar sound of thunderous footsteps, and the Doctor looked back to see the towering colossus move clumsily through the street behind them, pelted with bullets and missiles as it walked. The creature appeared to be physically impervious to the onslaught, although the lights and the noise clearly frightened it, only making the situation worse.  
Suddenly, a rocket hit the beast in the chest, causing it to rear up. It swung its massive arms around wildly, knocking three abandoned cars clean off the ground and into a distant building.

Donna looked up to see a massive forelimb come down straight for her, but the Doctor grabbed her and pulled her away, and the creature's huge hand hit the ground right where she had been.

"Run!" the Doctor shouted. The two of them ran for their lives, the spine-chilling moans of the creature and the blazing light from the army's weapons getting closer and closer…

The creature was getting a little too close for comfort. Soon it was right beside them. A missile hit it in the leg and it stumbled, the great behemoth falling towards the ground, exactly where the Doctor and Donna were standing.

Fortunately, they were right beside a subway, so they dashed in, just as 5000 tons of monster hit the ground exactly where they had been, destroying a building as it fell and blocking the entrance to the subway with rubble.

The two time-travellers sat there for a while catching their breath. Muffled thuds, roars and explosions could be heard coming from above.

"What the hell was that thing, Doctor? I mean, we saw it pretty clearly on the news, didn't we? And up close and personal…"

"A hexapod," the Doctor replied calmly. He appeared to be in deep, deep thought.

"A what?"

"Hexapod. An entirely separate order of vertebrates, with six limbs instead of four. Split from the main group of lobe finned fish, that's fish like the coelacanth, hundreds of millions of years ago. Mr. Grumpy Pants up there is in fact more closely related to the coelacanth than to you. All hexapods live in the ocean, at the very, very bottom."

"Right." Donna had never really liked her biology lessons when she was a child, but she had at least heard of the coelacanth, "but if it's lived in the sea for all its life, then how can it breathe up here?"

"Oh, I really must take you to see the deep ocean trenches sometime," the Doctor said, "because in the mid Atlantic Ridge and in other places, there are vast pockets of relatively oxygen-rich air trapped beneath layers of rock. The oxygen is made by photosynthesizing bacteria. Like I said before, an entire ecosystem, completely independent of the Sun. There's a whole world down there."

"How did something that big manage to stay hidden for so long? Surely we'd have found them by now, right?"

"Donna, the ocean is huge. You'd be completely blown away by just how huge it really is. At the moment, mankind knows more about the surface of the Moon than the ocean floor. I only know this much because the Time Lords did a complete scan of the planet when they were exploring time and space. And there's another, darker reason for why we're first hearing about these creatures now."

"It's that Japanese oil company, right? You said that they were digging for deep sea bacteria and that that would have really bad consequences."

"It's worse than that," the Doctor said glumly, "when Tagruato was drilling in the Atlantic, they may have pierced one of the air pockets, destroying the habitat of all the creatures living there. And do you want to know what's worse?" He now looked very said.

"What?" Donna was slightly disturbed by the idea of the creature having come to land because it didn't have a home anymore. She felt a bit sorry for it, despite all the damage it had caused.

"I've seen this species before, in the archives on Gallifrey, and I know for a fact that this thing is an infant male."

"An infant?" Donna had not expected this. "Are you telling me that that thing out there is only a baby!?"

"That's why he attacked the city. He's a scared baby looking for his mummy. But I don't think she's around anymore. He could be the last of his kind. Kind of like me…"

Donna said nothing. She knew that the Doctor's past was a very sensitive issue. The revelation that the monster up there was only an infant was just plain scary. If this was a baby, then WHAT would the mother look like? At the same time, she felt sympathetic towards the creature, as not only had its home been destroyed and its food supply depleted, but it was also all alone in the world.

They waited for a few hours, although it felt like days. Then they both stood up and went over to a map of the underground.

"Well, we seem to be at a bit of a dead end," the Doctor said, "there's only one way out, and that's that little track there that joins this station to the rest of the system."

"It looks like it's going to be pretty dark in there," Donna said, eyeing the gaping blackness that was the tunnel. "We should look for some torches."

"Yes," the Doctor said, walking over to a door labelled "Staff only" and unlocking it with the sonic screwdriver, "that way we'll know where we are. Speaking of torches, I wonder if this world has its own Torchwood."

"What's Torchwood?"

"It's a… Aha! Here are some torches," he said, handing her one. "Right, time to go walking in the dark." He had that excited, adventurous expression on his face, the way he usually did whenever he was about to do something thrilling and a bit dangerous.

"Don't you try anything funny in the dark," Donna warned him, half-jokingly.

"No, ma'am."

They set off. After a few minutes, they came to the main tunnel. It was eerily quiet there. Not a sound. Just darkness. Solid darkness. They kept walking.

"I spy," the Doctor began, "with my little eye, something beginning with… d."

"Is it darkness?"

"Yes. Good one, Donna."

"Any idea where we are, Doctor?"

"Nope."

They kept walking for a bit.

Suddenly, there was the sound of something crashing nearby.

"What was that?" Donna asked, turning her torch on.

"I dunno," the Doctor said.

"Oh, my God, look!" she said, shining her torch on a few shreds of cloth and something that looked suspiciously like blood.

"There's been a struggle here," the Doctor said, pulling out his sonic screwdriver, "very recently. Perhaps only in the last 15 minutes."

The silence was broken by a high-pitched croaking sound, coming from above.

The parasites had found them.

**End of chapter 6**


	7. Chapter 7: The Parasites

Author's notes: Here I sneaked in a little Fifth Doctor reference. See if you can spot it.

Also, I do not support Ten/Donna ships, and this chapter confirms that.

**Chapter 7: The Parasites**

They looked up to see some of the things that had come off the monster. They looked like a mix of a spider, a crab and a rat.

The creatures, spooked by the light from the torch, dropped from the ceiling, clawing and slashing at the Time Lord and the human below. One of them jumped onto Donna's back, trying to bite her shoulder, but she managed to fight it off. Two of them went for the Doctor's legs, tearing at the bottom of his coat. In vain, he picked a piece of celery out of his bottomless pocket and threw it at the things. This new object seemed to distract them, and soon they were fighting and squabbling over it.  
A big one jumped onto Donna, but then the Doctor raised the sonic screwdriver and turned the volume up as far as it would go.  
The creature on his companion let go, bared its mandibles at the Doctor, and then disappeared back into the darkness along with the rest of its pack.

"Are you alright?" the Doctor asked worriedly, helping Donna get up, "Are you hurt?"

"No, that's alright," she replied, "nothing serious. Just a few scratches. How about you?"

"I'm fine. Now, Donna, did they bite you at all? For all we know they might use venom to kill their prey."

"No, no bites."

"That's good." The Doctor said, breathing a sigh of relief.

"How come those things fled?"

"They seem to hunt by echolocation. That's what all that croaking was. They probably use their legs to do it, like crickets or grasshoppers, but use it to hunt like a dolphin or a bat. Apparently they don't particularly like the sound of the sonic screwdriver. We'd better keep that in mind. Anyway, we really should get out of here."

"Yeah."

They came to a locked door, with paint that looked as though it had been scratched by those strange creatures. The Doctor unlocked it and they stepped inside.

"Someone's been here before us," the Doctor said, looking at a broken vending machine and some drops of blood on the floor, "very likely those people who were attacked in the tunnel. By the looks of things, one of them was badly hurt."

"We should try and help them if we meet them."

"In that case," he said, walking onwards, "let's keep going now, so that we can catch up with them. There will almost certainly be others in need of help, too."

The Doctor and Donna went up several flights of stairs, through the train station, until they came to an abandoned shop. Suddenly, several soldiers appeared. One of them picked up a walkie-talkie.

"Sir, we have two more survivors here. Over."

"Excuse me," the Doctor said, "do you need a medic? If so, I can help."

"What's your name, sir?" the soldier asked.

"Dr. John Smith," the Doctor said, showing them the psychic paper, "trained under Dr. Grace Holloway in San Francisco."

"Who?" Donna asked.

"Never mind."

"Well, Dr. Smith," the soldier said, "it looks like you're going to have a lot to do. Follow me."

They went to a large area that had been converted into a sickbay. It was horrible. Everywhere patients with horrible injuries lay, in row upon row of sickbeds.

"Listen up everyone," said a military captain, "rack 'em and pack 'em. We're phantoms in fifteen."

"Bite! We've got a bite!" one of the nurses suddenly shouted, and the attention immediately turned to one of the girls the Doctor and Donna had seen before. She was bleeding out of her eyes.  
Two men in hazmat suits dragged the kicking, screaming girl behind a sheet of plastic.

"Marlena! Marlena!" The familiar-looking curly-haired man with the camera shouted, trying desperately to reach the girl, who was now coughing up vast amounts of blood. He was soon dragged away by a soldier along with the others in his group.

Behind the sheet, Marlena's body had started to expand. Suddenly, she exploded.

"What?" the Doctor said. He had not been expecting this.

"Flippin 'eck!" Donna was both disgusted and shocked.

"I think these parasites may be a little nastier than we thought. Wait here. I'm going to find out exactly what they're using."

The Doctor put on a hazmat suit and went into the quarantine area.

"Poor girl," he said, looking at Marlena's mutilated remains, "that poor, poor girl. Any idea what causes this?" he asked the two men there.

"We have no idea," one of them replied, "but whatever it is, it completely cooks every organ in the human body."

"Really?" the Doctor said, scanning some of the blood with the sonic screwdriver.

"What are you doing?" the other man asked.

"Scanning. Oh… that's interesting."

"What is it?"

"Enzyme Alpha-zed-delta 4815. Digests the victim from the inside, starting with the circulation system. Also causes tiny amounts of gas to build up in every single corner of the body. But that's in the high-pressure conditions of the ocean trenches. Up here, of course, the gas expands, due to the lower pressure, meaning any small animal that gets bitten by one of these parasites will… well… explode."

"You're not making sense."

"Well, you're only human. Anyway, there's only one cure. Enzyme inhibitor Zed-alpha-delta 162342. A chemical compound found only in Earth's oceans, the lost moon of Alzarion, as well as here and there in the Medusa Cascade."

"Are you OK?"

"Oh, I'm fine. Now, you'll have to excuse me, I have some patients to attend to."

He went back out, put on a lab coat and began to help the army medics.

It seemed like ages. Donna was sick of all the violence and dying they had experienced. That poor girl had just exploded right in front of her. However, she had to admire how the Doctor always managed to keep his cool, even in… well, especially in a crisis. Whether it was saving the past from Pyroviles, freeing Ood or stopping a Sontaran invasion, he always emerged as the hero, the knight in shining armour. She considered him a true friend, a man she could always count on, but that was about as far as her feelings for him went.

He seemed to be doing an extraordinarily good job, and he seemed to know a whole lot more about what to do than the human medics. He had lived for more than 900 years, after all.  
Soon, several more soldiers came in and helped get the patients onto helicopters, ready for evacuation. The Doctor's work was finished.

"Right, time to go." He said, smiling at his companion. He had saved many lives in the past fifteen minutes, and felt a bit better. "Oh," he added, "and stay away from the parasites."

**End of chapter 7**


	8. Chapter 8: Our Longest Night

**Chapter 8: Our Longest Night**

It was uncomfortably quiet outside. The whole city appeared to be deserted. Every now and then, there would be the distant roar of the monster, but apart from that, there was no sound.  
As the Doctor and his companion got closer to Central Park, it became clear just how big an impact the creature had made. Everywhere, buildings had been either damaged or completely destroyed.

One skyscraper at the edge of Central Park had clearly been hit by the creature, as it was leaning, at an alarming angle, up against the building beside it.

The Doctor stopped and thought of all those people, trapped in that skyscraper. For a split second, he thought of all those whom he had known and loved. His family, his friends, his planet, Romana… He had watched them all burn in the inferno that destroyed both the Time Lords and the Daleks.  
Looking at that toppled building, he decided that this time, he was going to make sure that someone would survive.

"Donna, I'm going into that building," the Doctor said.

"What?" Donna really didn't like the look of the skyscraper.

"There are people in there in need of help. We've got to do something. The army is probably going to be bombing the whole of Manhattan to get rid of the hexapod, and this building is right in the middle. It's going to crumble and burn with everyone in it unless we do something now."

"You're right. We ought to do something. But won't it be dangerous?"

"I've wandered through minefields on Skaro, been shot with machine guns, been possessed by a living sun and subsequently frozen to almost -200 degrees Celsius. I've seen things too terrible to describe and I'm still here. Don't worry about me. And I didn't say we."

"You're going in alone?"

"Yes. I don't want you to get hurt."

"Doctor, that's crazy! Time Lord or not, you can't do this alone. No one can."

"Donna, you're only a human. If you get hit by a 3 ton block of concrete, that's the end for you, but if that were to happen to me I'd still have a slim chance of making it out alive."

"But you'd have an even better chance if you had someone to look out for you. You need help, Doctor. I'm coming with you, whether you like it or not."

The Doctor sighed. He had to admire Donna's determination, even if she could be a bit stubborn at times. She was a good person, truly one of a kind, and helped him see that even he must have his limits. But he didn't want her to come with him into that fallen skyscraper, for fear of what might happen if she did. But then again, she was a very intelligent and strong woman, and as long as he kept an eye on her, she would be alright.

They went into the building. It had been badly damaged on the inside, and there was rubble everywhere. Fortunately, the staircase was still pretty much accessible, although the concrete was cracked, the rail was bent and everything tilted to one side.

"That doesn't look good," Donna said, looking at the broken staircase. The second floor in particular was in a very bad way. It looked loose.

"Well, I've seen worse," the Doctor said, scratching his head, "but we'd better watch where we step all the same."

"All those people, trapped up there. My God…"

"You aren't afraid of heights, are you?"

"No."

"Let's go, then. Alons'y!"

They made their way up the stairs. This was more difficult than it looked, and Donna held onto whatever she could because of the difficult angle, whereas the Doctor seemed to barely notice it at all. He just helped her if she stumbled. After a little while, though, she got used to it.

They came to the first door, which was blocked by a large heap of broken concrete. The Doctor and Donna shifted the rubble and opened the door. Inside was a middle-aged woman with two young children.

"Are you hurt?" Donna asked, "Can you move at all?"

"I'm fine. Who are you?" the woman asked them.

"I'm the Doctor and this is Donna Noble. What's your name?"

"I'm Mary. And this is Alex and Greg. I'm sorry, Doctor who?"

"Just the Doctor. Listen Mary, helicopter crews are evacuating people nearby. Go to the exit and head towards them. Tell them there are people here in need of help and that there are more on the way. Right then, let me help you out." He reached out and helped Mary get up. "That's it. And you two." He said, helping her children.

Once Mary was out, they kept on going, opening more doors and helping the people inside to get out.

The Doctor opened yet another rubble-blocked door, and they went in. Inside was a young woman, whose legs were pinned down by a pile of large planks.

"Help me!"

"It's alright," Donna said, "the Doctor's going to save you."

"Right you are, Donna. Now, help me shift this, please."

"Ow! Argh!" The girl's legs were very badly bruised.

"Are you in pain?" the Doctor asked.

"Yes."

"I can help with that," he said, putting his hands on the girl's head.

"What are you doing?"

"Easing your pain a little," the Doctor said, "by transferring some of it to me. Just concentrate on me."

"OK..." She didn't quite trust the Doctor.

The Doctor closed his eyes. He never liked doing this, but on the other hand, he hated seeing other people in pain.

"Just hold still… ah yes, Jane, isn't it? I… Ah! Ouch, that was uncomfortable." The Doctor took his hands of Jane's head, scrunching his face in discomfort, but then shaking it off as if nothing had happened.

"Whoa," Jane said, "it's gone now. How did you do that? Who are you?"

"Oh, I was just passing through. While I was relieving your pain, I saw that you're worried."

"Yes," she replied, "I'm worried about my friends Beth and Marlena. Beth lives on the floor right above us, but I don't know where Marlena is right now."

The Doctor gave Donna an ominous look. From the look on his face, it was clear that this was the same Marlena who had… it was best not to think about that.

"Donna, you should help Jane to get down to the ground floor, while I go up to look for Beth. Where does she live?"

The girl told him, and soon the Doctor went up to the next floor, while Donna helped the injured girl down the stairs.

The Doctor made his way along the corridor, making sure to check every flat for survivors. Fortunately, all of them seemed to have got out in time.

At last, he reached her flat, and found that the door had been kicked open. The door had a dusty shoeprint on it, its size, shape and depth indicating that it had been made by a healthy man in his early 20s. Inside, he found a short iron pole, covered in blood. Beth had probably been lying speared on the pole, until the mysterious people had come to help her, clearly lifting her off it. He touched the blood. To his surprise, it was still wet, meaning that she had been lying there just a few minutes before he had arrived. She was probably still alive, then.

Scared. Fire. The things keep throwing loud fire. Run from the things. Run from the fire. I want my Mummy!

Through the broken window, the Doctor saw the grotesque bulk of the hexapod move just a few streets away. He ran for the door, dashed down the hall and leaped down a section of stairs. He managed to get down most of the floors, but all the time he had a strange feeling that he was being watched.  
It was then that he noticed the parasite.

It was a huge one, as big as the ones that had attacked the soldiers in the news report. It bared its fangs at the Doctor, running along the wall with ease, and leaping for him. The Doctor dodged the parasite's attack, pointing the sonic screwdriver at it, trying to scare it off. This only made it angry, and soon he was running for his life down the crooked staircase.

"Donna, run!" the Doctor shouted to his companion.

Donna, who was a few flights down, heard the Doctor shout something to her. "What? Doctor, I can't hear you!"

"I said run!"

The parasite was getting closer and closer. The Doctor could hear the clicking of its legs as it ran down the stairs after him.

Donna, who had just got Jane out of the building, ran back to help the Doctor. Something was horribly wrong, and he needed her help. Suddenly, she heard the worst sound she could possibly imagine. The Doctor was screaming.

"Doctor!" She ran up the stairs, only to find that the Doctor was on his back, being dragged away by a huge parasite. "Oi! Let go of him!" she screamed at the creature, although it seemed to take no notice.

Then she noticed the Doctor's sonic screwdriver lying on the floor. She looked up and remembered. The stairs above were cracked. The concrete was loose, and conveniently right where the parasite was headed. She raised the device, pointing it at the weakest looking spot she could see, and hoped for the best.

Debris rained down onto the parasite, narrowly missing the Doctor, who jumped out of the way as the creature let go.  
The parasite, its legs caught under a block of concrete, was writhing about, desperately trying to free itself, when suddenly a massive block fell down and killed the creature with a sickening crunch.

The Doctor and Donna ran out of the building, not daring to look back.

"Well," Donna said, "that was wild…"

The Doctor had a look of despair on his face.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Donna asked, slightly worried. She noticed that his left shoulder was bleeding.

"Donna," the Doctor said, his voice filed with dismay, "I've been bitten!"

**End of chapter 8**


	9. Chapter 9: Hammerdown

**Chapter 9: Hammerdown**

"What?" Donna said, for a second not quite grasping what had happened. In an instant it hit her. The parasite had bitten him.

"It bit me! The parasite bit me!" the Doctor said, confirming Donna's worst fears.

"Oh, sh-"

"Donna! Language!"

"Sorry, Doctor… Oh, God, this is… this is bloody terrible! Is there any hope at all?"

"Yes, there is," the Doctor said, "the parasite's saliva contains a digestive enzyme that the Time Lords called Enzyme Alpha-zed-delta 4815. Now, Donna, if someone's been infected with this enzyme, there's only one hope. I need a very specific enzyme inhibitor called Enzyme inhibitor Zed-alpha-delta 162342. It neutralizes the enzyme without any side effects on the body. Fortunately I keep a few bottles of it in the TARDIS."

"So if we can reach the TARDIS in time, you'll be alright?"

"Yes."

"How much time do we have?"

"Not a lot, I'm afraid. My body temperature is lower than that of a human, and therefore relatively closer to that of the parasites' natural habitat, so it works slightly faster on Time Lords than on humans. We have about 20 minutes."

"20 minutes?" Donna said, looking at her watch, "You're kidding me!"

The Doctor got out a dry cloth from his pocket and, with a look of pain on his face, dried the wound as well as he could.

"What are you doing?"

"Drying the wound. Water doubles the enzyme's efficiency. But there's no time to talk now. Let's run!"

They ran frantically through Central Park, the roars of the monster sounding loud and clear to their left. There was also the sound of large explosions.

Very scared! Falling fire! Fire everywhere! Why won't the black flying things stop? Why are they so bad? Can't see. Dust. Dust everywhere, but now can see. Small flying thing in front of me. Angry! Angry at the flying thing! Bite it!

Donna looked to her left as the monster rose out of a cloud of debris, mighty and terrifying, and bit into the side of a helicopter, which plummeted straight towards her and the Doctor.  
The Doctor had also seen it. With a look of terror on his face, he shouted at Donna to take cover, as the flaming, smoking helicopter hurtled past them and shattered a large tree as it hit the ground with a deafening crash.  
The monster had also appeared, crushing entire sections of the park with its massive feet as it moved clumsily out of the ruined city. It passed right over the Doctor's head without even noticing.

What did I bite? What is the flying thing? Want to know. Mummy never caught these things for me or sister. Good to eat?

"Donna, run!" the Doctor said, as the monster moved towards the helicopter. Donna followed close behind.  
He could feel the effect of the enzyme. It felt like he was being burned alive inside. He was beginning to feel dizzy.  
Fortunately, he could see the TARDIS. It was just a few yards away.

See something else. One of the things. Holding something little. Want to know. Hungry. Eat.

The Doctor ran inside the TARDIS, with Donna following close behind.  
She heard people shouting, so she looked back.  
It was the curly-haired man with the camera. He was standing, the camera in his hand, face to face with the monster. It leaned closer towards him, probably more curious than aggressive. Suddenly, the great creature opened its mouth and bent down all the way to the ground, devouring the man.  
Donna looked away and ran back into the TARDIS. She had seen enough.

The Doctor was rummaging through one of his many cupboards.

"Donna, come quickly! I need your help!"

Donna came running. The Doctor's life was at stake.

"What do you need?"

"Help me look for a bottle labelled Enzyme Inhibitor Zed-alpha-delta 162342!"

"Zed-alpha-delta162342… Ok, got it."

They searched through the cupboard. The Doctor was looking horribly pale and tired. He stopped searching and began rubbing his head.

"Doctor! Come on," Donna said, "stay with me, Doctor. Stay with me!"

Suddenly, she spotted what she what was looking for. Enzyme inhibitor Zed-alpha-delta 162342.

"Got it! Doctor, you're going to make it!"

"Great." he said, but his voice sounded slightly weaker than it usually was. He took a syringe out of the cupboard.

"Oh, God, not needles…" Donna said, turning away.

The Doctor filled the syringe with the inhibitor and injected.  
He sat down and breathed a sigh of relief. Already colour was pouring back into his face.

"Oh, that's better," the Doctor said, "well done, Donna."

At that moment, the TARDIS cloister bell rang.

"'Eh? What's this? Oh, dear." the Doctor said, running over to the console screen.

"What is it?" Donna asked.

"There seem to be thirty-four thousand missiles, really big ones, all heading straight for… Manhattan. And there's a radio signal being broadcast…" he replied, pressing a few buttons. The TARDIS played the slightly crackly radio transmission

"… the missiles are on target. Repeat, the missiles are on target. This ought to nail that son-of-a-bitch. Hammerdown Protcol will take full effect in two minutes. Repeat, detonation in two minutes. Everybody get the hell out of there. May God forgive us. Over." The transmission ended.

"That's not good," the Doctor said, "not at all… They're going to bomb the whole of Manhattan to get rid of the hexapod."

"But we can stop them, can't we?" Donna asked, hopeful, "We can stop the missiles, right?"

The Doctor gave her a sad look. That look said everything that needed to be said. The answer was no.

"There is one thing we can do," he said, walking over to the console and turning the exterior view on. On the screen, Donna could see the monster, moving through the city on the other side of Central Park, but underneath a bridge, huddled together, was a young man and a young woman. On one side of the screen, it was possible to see thirty-four thousand black dots in the air, getting dangerously close to the city, "but it comes at a cost. We have a choice. We can save the hexapod, a scared baby that could be the last of its kind, by leading it out of the city, or we can save those two people underneath the bridge. The TARDIS only has enough power for one trip in this world before it has to leave, so if we choose one, then that's final. No second chance. Whichever we choose, someone is going to die." He looked at his companion. On the screen the first missiles had hit, creating massive explosions.

Donna said nothing. The Doctor was right. Either way, someone was going to die.

Robert Hawkins sat underneath a little bridge, with Elizabeth McIntyre at his side, saying what he knew would be his last words on Earth, to the video camera in his hand.

"It's OK." he said in an attempt to calm Beth down, "Beth, look at me."

"I don't know what to say." Beth said. She was crying.

"Just tell them who you are."

Beth, fighting back her tears, told the camera, and perhaps some day an audience, who she was.

"My name is Elizabeth McIntyre… I don't know why this is happening… But we're going to wait here until this passes… Rob, we're going to wait here."

At that moment, a missile hit the ground near the bridge, knocking the camera out of Rob's hand and causing bricks to rain down around them.

Rob decided that he would confess his true feelings to Beth, one last time.

"I love you!"

"I love you!" Beth told Rob back, just as another missile hit the ground, this time a little closer, and destroyed more of the bridge. At that point, the camera battery went dead.

MUMMY! HELP ME!

What happened next was so strange that no-one would've believed it. There was a strange sound, like keys scraping across wood, followed by a light that waxed and waned like a heartbeat.  
Rob looked up. He could see a big, blue box with the words Police (Public call) Box written on it, getting clearer and clearer with every second. A door on the side of it opened, revealing a man in a long, brown trench coat and bright red trainers, followed by a red-haired woman in her thirties.

"Quick! Get them to the TARDIS infirmary!" the man shouted. Rob felt himself being dragged into the box… and then everything went dark.

Rob woke up sitting on a bench, with Beth in his arms. It took him a little while to realize where he was, soon he recognized the place. It was a little park in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was back home.  
He could see the strange blue box, which stood under a tree, and the two strangers were also there, smiling at him and Beth. The man winked at him, and then the two of them stepped back into the box. Beth had woken up.  
Suddenly, the blue box started to fade. It had that same flashing light and the same sound, only reversed. In a few seconds, it had disappeared altogether.

"Who is that guy?" Beth asked.

"I have no idea," Rob said, "but whoever he is, he's our hero."

Meanwhile, the TARDIS had travelled back through the Void and was in temporal orbit in the right Universe, where it belonged.

"Wow," Donna said, "that was… wild…"

"A bit…" the Doctor said, leaning up against one of the pillars that surrounded the console.

"Hm…"

"What was that place we were going to again?" the Doctor asked, scratching his head.

Donna said nothing.

"Donna?"

The Doctor looked round, and saw that his companion had fallen asleep in the chair by the console. No surprise, either, as she had stayed awake the whole night. Being a Time Lord, he never needed much sleep at all, but humans, he'd found, were quite different.

"Oh…" said quietly, and went to fetch a blanket. The trip to Florana could wait.

He breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that for now at least, their troubles were over.

Come to think of it, even he was getting tired.

**THE END**

_..._

_"…evila llits s'ti…"_


End file.
